Rosy Prose

Sailing

 

I’m sailing away,

Into this painting,

Unfurling the canvas,

Rolled out in my mind.

The waves crash silently,

My ship rolls in a gentle sway,

Like two lovers on a dance floor,

Two moving as one—united in heart.

Pulsating rhythms of this dream,

Rapture me into the rays of the sun,

As it, sizzling, kisses the sea’s horizon.

I have company here,

Attending my mellow whims:

The clouds are all puffy,

Azure turns red, and then blue overhead,

Feathery wings tip in salute,

The waves are waving at me,

The dolphins smile at me,

I like it here,

Just me, my friends, and the sea.

 

 

While the real beauty of art lies in the viewer’s, or hearer’s personal perceptions, sometimes the artist is aiming at something specific. Whether it be a painting, a poem, prose, melody,  or another form, we hope to inspire, or to solicit deeper thought, and sometimes it is simply meant to encourage and appeal to pleasantry. Here, I am aiming for a certain pleasant sensation that one may experience when paying heed to the awesomeness of God’s glorious creations.

I felt the same way as I stood on a high precipice gazing down into the Grand Canyon at the Colorado River below. It’s as if God sets off a spark in the soul which seems to say, “Can you see me now?”

Perhaps, you too have felt it before. Maybe you weren’t sure what caused you to feel that warm embrace—it seemed so spiritual, as you beheld beautiful wonders on the earth, in the sea, or in the skies above?

 

 

And you shall seek me, and find me, when you shall search for me with all your heart.

Jeremiah 29:13

 

 

 

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Love is Powerful

The haunting lyrics were first written in 1957 by Felice and Boudleaux Bryant, and in 1960 The Everly Brothers recorded the song LOVE HURTS. It was included on their album titled A Date with the Everly Brothers.

A year later Roy Orbison remade the song with his distinct and endearing sounds, bringing it up to the top five on the Australian Single Play. Then in 1975 the heavy metal band Nazareth re-popularized Love Hurts, moaning words that expound the hazards a heart in love may encounter.

Love hurts—Love scars—Love wounds and marks—Any heart not tough or strong enough to take a lot of pain…

Country artist Emmy Lou Harris also included it in her repertoire. The song has always resonated with us because most everyone has at one time or another experienced the pain that love has the capacity to inflict.

This leads us to one irrefutable truth concerning LOVE:  It wields tremendous power—to heal or to hurt. To sway or to bring us in line. To kill or to save. And it possesses many different dynamics as well, as other songs elucidate, like The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News.

While most folks equate the facts of these songs only with romantic type love, it is also true of all kinds of love, such as paternal, brotherly and social love. Who would be foolish enough to argue that the love of a mother is not scary powerful? The nature of paternal love can quickly become a protective juggernaut not to be taken lightly. Motherly Protection 

But there is nothing, and I mean nothing that can measure the lengths a Father’s Love will go to in protecting his children.

You and I have a Heavenly Father who feels more strongly for us that any human parent is capable. Imagine that every soul who has ever lived is your child! Oh, how many have turned their backs and rebelled against Father God? A rebellious child always brings an indescribable heartache to their parents. What about when one of our children is struck by a car and killed, or is diagnosed with cancer? Sent to prison? What if someone were to deliberately injure our child?—just think of the strong feelings it would produce in us, and then multiply it by several billion. But even that wouldn’t come close to revealing the power of God’s awesome love.

God’s love is pure and much higher than ours, and likewise the pain that His love produces in His own heart is greater than anything we could possibly fathom. It was this same paternal love that caused Father God to send His only begotten Son to die in our behalf—so that His created children could be saved. The Author of Life willingly gave His life to save ours. Jesus said,

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13

And then He stretched out His hands to be nailed to a cross beam and brutally suffered a horrendous death. He had the power to stop it—He could have wiped us all out and started over with just a single word from His lips. But the power of His love held Him up there to endure it all. Besides, He knew He would rise again and usher in a way for you and I to live forever with our heavenly Parent in His new world, a glorious place with mansions for each of us along a street of gold.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:16 KJV

Profitable Troubles

One year at an outdoor revival held by our congregation a young couple came to the prayer tent where I was stationed. They found themselves in difficult circumstances and indicated they would like me to pray with them. Struggling financially, they were living in a rundown RV with no electricity. Their marital relationship was under a great strain, being battered about by hardships. In the book of Hosea God refers to life struggles like theirs as being in the valley of Achor, which means “trouble”.

“Therefore I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the wilderness and speak tenderly to her. There I will give her back her vineyards, and will make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. There she will respond as in the days of her youth, as in the day she came up out of Egypt.” Hosea 2:14-15

Revealing the tender compassion which drives God’s heart, the book of Hosea is a story of God’s boundless love for His children. It exemplifies the closeness He desires in our relationship with Him. After God allows us to suffer in the valley of troubles, we must respond in faith, repenting where needed and learning how to trust Him more completely. That’s when His work inside us begins to profoundly take shape, and His purposes are moved forward.

God is preparing each one of us for the final culmination of His plan, which is found in the 19 & 20^th verses of the same chapter.

“I will betroth you to Me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in loving-kindness and in compassion, And I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord. (Hosea 2:19-20 NAS)

 God loves us so much He wants to marry us! After experiencing His provision of peace and strength and comfort through the valleys of life’s difficulties, we are more prepared for the completion of our union with Him. On the other side of hardship and suffering, when we’ve grown to trust God’s love for us and yearn with every fiber of our being to please Him, He begins fitting us for our white bridal gown.

A year later in downtown Indianapolis I saw that same couple I had prayed with. Both have grown tremendously in their faith. They said, “We are more in love with each other now than ever before.” Then they added, “God is good.”

If you find yourself in the valley today, know that God is working in your life to draw you nearer to Him. “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” Psalm 30:5b

Prayer

Lord, I know you have a reason for everything you allow. Please give me strength and patience to endure what I must. Thank you for teaching me about your faithfulness and what is involved with trusting you. In your Son’s holy name, amen. 

Please note that the above image is not the same couple that is referred to in this post. They are simply good friends, “Bill & Bonnie” holding one of my devotional books. Blessings.

Love—It’s All In Your Head

Part One: Love and the Human Psyche (By the Scientist in Me)

Part Two: Loving Loved Ones Who Are Hard to Love (By the Minister of Christ in Me)

 

Love & the Human Psyche

Neuro-Psychiatrists tell us the human brain is hardwired in a way that we crave intimate relationships—that we long for love. Yet often those relationships end so horribly in heartache. A bad relationship leaves our fragile psyches bruised, or even completely shattered. Once bitten by love, some fear a repeat of that emotional trauma so much that they close themselves off and never again open themselves up to love.

A young man attending college sees a beautiful woman in class, and immediately he is attracted to her. Several weeks pass, and he’s made a few heart-felt, yet feeble attempts to speak with her, but every time he sees her the attraction is intensified. Something has been happening within the neural network of his brain.

Love has a way of rewiring our neural network. We meet someone, and similar to a virus, they occupy and alter our synapses. This causes our brain to release chemicals that produce arousal, attraction, or obsession. That special person becomes an ever present distraction; we can’t seem to focus upon anything but them. But we are not simply thinking about them all the time. Our brain is building a model of that person—a simulation of who and what we believe them to be. Our mind is actually predicting what they think, or rather what we want them to think, and even how they feel. So let’s say we’ve begun a relation with them. It may go well for some time.

Then suddenly our illusion of that person meets who they really are. Our simulation of them and reality finally collide like two trains heading in opposing directions. That person had no chance whatsoever of living up to our expectations of them, because we had a false view of who they were. Our mind was in love with the depiction our brain created of who that person was, rather than the actual person. This brings up the all important question: Did we ever really love their true person, or were we simply in love with our perception of who they were?

 

Loving Loved Ones Who Are Hard To love

(Previously published in “Christian Focus Magazine” June-July issue 2013 pg.42)

 As Phillip sat across from me with his elbows on my desk, his face in his hands, the quaking voice he emitted dripped with disappointment and sorrow. He was adamant that his wife Maria had changed completely after they were married, saying that she was not at all what he had expected her to be. When I also spoke with Maria, she said almost exactly the same thing about Phillip. Then, counseling both together, we discovered that they each had held very unrealistic expectations of the other, as well as a false view of each other from the beginning.

If we do not love God first, and understand our desperate need for the grace He gives, then the people we love will never meet our expectations of them. We will expect conformity to an illusion of what the perfect candidate for that particular role or relationship looks like.

When we come to Christ and see ourselves with clarity in the light of His holiness, how utterly detestable our own sinfulness becomes to us! It is only when we see ourselves for who and what we truly are that we can know what unconditional love is, for God has sent His own Son to die for us while we were yet sinners, while we are still in that wretched condition. The question is then begged: Do I really love this person who is so far from my illusion of what they should be? Our answer lies in the question: Has God demanded that we conform to a pattern of perfection before He loves us, or after His act of grace and mercy, after He has proven His love? He loved us first, and then acted upon that love with grace.

Speaking of our old sinful nature, Paul writes in Gal.2:20 “I am crucified with Christ”. In dying to the old self, we crucify our illusion of who and what we ourselves are, and of what that loved one should be. The weakness of the flesh perpetrates and perpetuates these illusions in our mind. The Spirit of Truth, or Holy Spirit, reveals truth. Jesus Christ is the truth, (John 14:6), and ALL truth can be found through a relationship with Him.

 

Expect your expectations to change!

 

With our illusions shattered by the illuminating reality found in Christ, we can decide to love unconditionally. We must begin granting grace and mercy to our loved one. Suddenly, our expectations are pure. They have not been lowered, but are now reasonable, having grown out of an accurate knowledge of who we really are, and hence who they truly are. We are now empowered to lead them to the same truth in Jesus to make the changes they need to make. We certainly cannot judge them (we are or were in the same condition) and we can now truly love them, for our disillusionment—the breaking of our illusion, has given us the ability, the power to love them into change.

There are 3 steps toward our loved one becoming what we need in that relationship.

Know the truth found only in a relationship with Christ Jesus.

Love unconditionally as we have been loved by God. 

And grant them the same kind of grace we have been given.

“The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.” Romans 16:20

Phillip and Maria just had their second child. After fifteen years of happy marriage, they say their love for each other has now grown to a beautiful maturity, and life together is wonderful, thanks to Jesus Christ.